Noel Brazil (23) was "wrapping up the night" two Fridays ago, with a bag of chips and a chat with his friend, Leonard, whom he hadn't seen in a while. "The next thing I knew I was being woken up in Beaumont Hospital by a garda and an ambulance man. According to my friend I was hit with a bar, clocked on the head and then a whole lot of them came around me, kicking me very hard," he says.

His friend attempted at first to push them away, but a few of them turned and chased him, beating him up, too.

The incident began outside the Beachcomber chipper in Malahide, Co Dublin, at about 12:30 a.m. as the two young friends ate their post-pint burger and chips outside.

"We were just talking away between ourselves when this guy at the door, around my age, started just shouting over at us that he wanted to take our chips. I didn't know him from Eve and we were just ignoring him, but he was acting very aggressive towards us," says Noel. "Then a friend of his came along and kind of apologised for his behaviour and we said it was OK, that he wasn't causing us any trouble. Basically we didn't want to get involved.

"Then his friend went away, or so we thought."

At that point Noel and Leonard turned to leave. As they walked away "about six of them came out in twos and threes" and Noel was assaulted from behind.

"I can't even remember being hit by the bar. When I woke up I couldn't even talk. The whole left-hand side of my face, from my eyebrow down to my chin, was bruised, my left eye was closed, I had gashes on my head and one rib was cracked".

His attackers had kicked him continuously about the body and head after he had lost consciousness

"When I came home from hospital I still had awful pressure on my head. I didn't know what it was. I thought I might be bleeding so my girlfriend brought me back in and I had a scan done. Luckily enough there was no bleeding but there was a lot of bruising over the brain. I was very lucky, I think."

Two weeks on and there has been no arrest for the attack. Noel meanwhile says he cannot sleep at night, is on a lot of painkillers, cannot go out on his own and feels he has "nothing to look forward to".

"I find now I can only sleep during the day when I know there are people up and with me. I don't know if it's because I'm afraid to go to sleep at night but I just find I stay awake.

"I can't go out, even during the day, without someone with me. Before all this I was pretty easygoing like, outdoors all the time. But now I have to have someone with me. I'd be lost if it wasn't for my girlfriend, Lisa. She's been very understanding.

"And my mam. When she came in to see me in the hospital, when I woke up I felt all this pressure in my head and I said to her: `Mam, I don't know if I'm going to get through this.' She was very taken aback, had to leave the room. I think she had a little cry.

"I'm finding it very hard to talk to anyone now, even my friends," he goes on. "It's like I've lost trust in people. I don't feel there's anything to look forward to. My work is driving around building sites, meeting a lot of people, and to be honest I don't know if I'm going to able to go back. The thought of it is too nerve-racking.

"I know it's bad," he says, "and that I'm probably going into myself, but at the moment I just want to be with the people who are closest to me."